Tesla Mega-Battery In Australia Reacts To Outage In Record Time
Less than a month after the new Tesla mega-battery in Australia was unveiled, it's already proving its worth by responding to power outages in "record" time. In the past three weeks alone, the Hornsdale Power Reserve has smoothed out at least two major energy outages reacting more quickly than coal-fired backups.
Last week, the world's largest lithium-ion battery kicked in just 0.14 seconds after the Loy Yang facility in Victoria, one of Australia's biggest plants, suffered an unexplained drop in output. This comes after an outage at the same facility prompted the Hornsdale battery to respond in as little as four seconds.
The Horndale battery system uses the same energy-storage technology used on Tesla vehicles. It is also one of Tesla CEO Elon Musk's latest projects in his quest for global adoption of sustainable energy.
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Back in March, Musk promised via Twitter that he will bring a battery system for South Australia's struggling grid within 100 days or else it will be free. Three months later, a deal had already been reached between the state and Tesla which, along with French-based energy company Neoen, to produce the battery. By Dec. 1, Australia has announced that it had a switch to the Horndale battery system.
The battery is powered by wind turbines located at the nearby Hornsdale wind farm, storing excess energy during hours of low demand. It can power up to 30,000 homes, albeit only for a short time meaning that it must still be supported by traditional power plants.
The effectiveness of the power reserve is being closely watched in a region in the grips of an energy crisis. Electricity prices in Australia have been soaring in recent months particularly in the state of South Australia where, last year, 1.7 million residents to lose power in a blackout.
The region is also suffering from storms and heat waves causing further outages at a critical time when many Australians are bracing for more with the onset of summer in the Southern Hemisphere.
